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dixiedoodah

Serial Podcast

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No idea where this fits in other than I listened to it likes would an audiobook, and I suspect others in this category might have as well. I'm a year late to the party, but just listened to it all on a road trip with my high school aged son. Has anyone else listened? Where do you come down on it: guilty, innocent, guilty but not convictable?

 

During the show I changed my opinion every week. My son feels pretty strongly one way. Now that I've had some time to process and spent about 10 minutes googling the case, I think I've come down on a side.

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No idea where this fits in other than I listened to it likes would an audiobook, and I suspect others in this category might have as well. I'm a year late to the party, but just listened to it all on a road trip with my high school aged son. Has anyone else listened? Where do you come down on it: guilty, innocent, guilty but not convictable?

 

During the show I changed my opinion every week. My son feels pretty strongly one way. Now that I've had some time to process and spent about 10 minutes googling the case, I think I've come down on a side.

 

I hadn't heard of this podcast before but I decided to check it out. Interesting case. I'm only through the first lecture but I'll come back to compare notes when I've finished.

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Is this fictional or based on a real case? I've heard of the podcast but haven't listened. I've got a ton of podcasts I've subscribed to, but I never seem to remember to open the app. Maybe today's the day!

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Real case. Friends of the defendant, a teenage boy convicted in 2000 of murdering his high school girlfriend, contacted a reporter claiming new evidence and attorney incompetence. They asked the reporter to look into the details as the conviction was based largely on one witness with a constantly changing story. The podcast is a somewhat realtime story of the investigation done by the reporter.

 

If you plan to listen, I'd recommend not really googling the case until you do. The podcast has some crazy over the top fans who took things into their own hands and (besides really sketchy behavior to people involved in the case) present all kinds of "evidence" that is very confusing if you haven't gotten a good grip o the story via Serial.

 

Kid and I were completely obsessed with it. Lots of fodder for conversation with a teen about poor choices, high school life, civics etc.

Edited by dixiedoodah
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LOVED THIS PODCAST. I became obsessed. Took over pop culture for a minute there.

 

So, where did you land? I believe that Adnan is not 100% innocent. I believe that Jay had more to do with it than he has let on. Beyond that, my opinion, too, changes all the time!

 

Side note: did you see the SNL parody of Serial? SO GOOD!

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Initially I was kind of leaning towards innocence, but the last episode really did it for me. The only really solid fact is that Jay knew where the body and the car were, so he must be involved at least to the level he said. When you look at all of the other lesser evidence, when Adnan admitted he had the phone, where the phone was, as the assistant said, this is one hell of a bad day. There is literally no scenario I can come up with that absolves Adnan that doesn't involve police cover ups, James Bond and the like. there were a lot of little things - the teacher saying Hae hid in her classroom to stay away from Adnan, the fact that Adnan lied about quite a bit of stuff... I just don't see any way all of that is a bad coincidence, I'm pretty firmly in the he did it camp now. The more I learn about what was presented in the trial that wasn't on serial, I'm not even sure I'm still in the "but not proven" camp. As the detective said, you can have reasonable doubt about any one item, but the idea is to look at the big picture. Once all of those little things are stacked up, is it reasonable to doubt that they ALL are wrong?

 

That being said, Jay and Jenn are also lying their asses off.

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I just finished the podcast and I haven't done any additional research but here are two things I feel comfortable saying:

 

1) I fully believe that Jay is a psychopath. I believe this regardless of whether or not Adnan is too or whether or not Adnan killed Hae. I have thought this since episode one, before the reporter said anything about him. She had simply played one of the taped interviews of Jay and he pinged my psychopath radar immediately. I say this as someone who has both academic and personal experience with psychopaths. My senior thesis in college was about psychopaths so I've done countless hours of research on psychopathology and my brother in law is definitely one so I've had close contact with one as well. One thing that really stood out to me was Jay's pathological lying. My brother in law does the same thing. He lies just as much as he tells the truth (maybe more) and often times, like Jay, his lies don't seem to serve any purpose. Because Jay is a proven pathological liar and because I think he's a psychopath and because he's lied so much in this case, I can't take anything he's said to be the truth because there's no way for me to tell truth from lie. The only reason I know Jay is involved is that he knew were Hae's car was. For all I know he killed Hae for some reason that would only be justifiable to a psychopath. I really wish Stephanie would have agreed to be interviewed because I think she could have shed some light on Jay.

 

2) The second thing I can say with certainty is that Adnan, regardless of whether or not he truly did it, should not have been convicted. I think there is a boatload of reasonable doubt in this case. The entire case pretty much rests on Jay's statements and as I said before, he can't be trusted. This doesn't mean Adnan didn't do it but I don't think you can convict based on the evidence. I think the defense did a crappy job defending him (it does seem like there was misconduct in addition to just regular poor decision making). There also seems to be some shady stuff with the prosecution and I believe their proposed motive was off. I don't think it had anything to do with his religion or sexism in Pakistan, if he did it. I'll also say that while I don't think race and religion were major factors in his conviction, I do think they played a minor role based on some of the info we've learned about two of the jurors and what we've been told about the investigation. Had this trial happened after 9/11 I think it would have played a more major role but it happened in 1999 when prejudice against Muslims and people of middle eastern descent were not as strong although still present.

 

I'm really torn on whether or not he actually did it. I can make arguments either way. I can explain away all of the evidence against him but it does seem like there's a lot of smoke for there not to be a fire. But if he was set up this would be true as well. I may have more to add after talking it over with more people and reading up a bit more.

 

dixiedoodah, what conclusion did your son come to?

Edited by witchkitten

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So I've been listening to the follow up podcast Undisclosed (I haven't finished it yet) but five episodes in I can now say I believe Adnan is innocent and he was likely set up by the police and the prosecution. There is evidence of the detectives coaching Jay during his interview and evidence of blatant lying at trial by the prosecution and with holding evidence. The fact is the physical evidence doesn't support the state's theory of the crime in any way. Up above I said where there's smoke there's fire and I now believe the police created, or at least helped create, that smoke. I urge anyone who interested in Serial and this case to listen to this podcast. Rabia Chaudry, the mother of Adnan's friend who got Sarah from Serial involved, is one of the hosts, so she's obviously biased, but her two other cohosts only became interested in the case through Serial so they're more objective, and the evidence and theories that they present based on their own analysis and plethora of experts really destroys the State's case.

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